


Motif

by Jadealiya



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-17 12:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadealiya/pseuds/Jadealiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ME2 - Sole Survivor Shepard deals with the aftermath of Grunt's loyalty mission. <br/>Originally written as a fill for the ME kmeme, details on Shepard left intentionally vague.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Motif

You know. As the first tremor echoes under your feet, before the automated voice finishes its invocation of survival, before your companions have begun to consider what new hell is about to break through the ground. You know.

It is the cadence of your nightmares, the motif, the resonant frequency that cuts through every layer of armor and training and discipline and leaves you bare and shaking and vulnerable and-

No.

Some reserve, some deep dark drive within shuts out the voices, the screaming, the cool evening of another place, another time to focus wholly on the arid sun scorched battlefield before you.

To the mission. Always. Consummate soldier, leader, deathless daredevil dancing with darkness. One step ahead of the nightmares. Always.

Always?

It catches you, later, unawares and unwary, unguarded and unprepared. A jolt in the elevator brings back a jolt in the prefab structure a jolt of the hard rock raining down in the desert and and-

Checking the perimeter, thankless tiresome task for the new kids. Sudden shaking screaming, you turn and see your Commander caught clawing crying ghastly tentacles tethered to his midsection. Suddenly he is too small, bisected, bloody, broken his legs pulled into the sand and gone.

Gunfire cuts through the twilight, terse, terrible. You grapple for your partner in patrol, grapple for your gun. Grapple for you sanity, your training, your will to see the dawn.

You know. None of you will see the dawn.

Orders echo, clarion clear above the din of death and destruction. Distress call. Backup, call for back up. Extraction, exit, fall back, fall back.

But there is no falling back. The ground shifts, sudden steps faltering, you are on your knees in the grass, in the sand, on the hard metal cold floor. A roar, a tremor, a shadow looming, it is demon death darkness descending in a shower of blinding blazing burning acids shorting your shields, searing your face, your armor, your gun.

Your partner. She fires and screams and pulls you to your feet and falls suddenly silent as the monster descends, consumes, pulls back and dives back into the depths.

A thought, clear as pain, your mind's eye can no longer detail her face.

But you are up, weaving through carnage, corpses, castoff leavings of an unholy feast. Faceless marines and familiar marines and there, a bleeding adolescent krogan and there, a broken turian with blue face paint and there, a quarian with a shattered violet mask and there and there and there and you will make them pay. Tear them apart before they take you. But they will take you, scrambling, screaming, death delayed will not be cheated.

"Shepard?"

A voice cuts through the nightmare, cautious, concerned. You are huddled in the darkness of Akuze, the blistering heat of Tuchanka, the dim artificial light of your fish tanks.

You taste blood in your mouth, tears on your lips. Your hands cramped and crumpled, pressed into fists, slammed into the floor. A familiar shadow falls over you, no herald of carnage, monster's head from the depths, but a calm, comfort, companion and friend and-

"Shepard." The voice is pity and promises. A cadence of hope, a motif of faith. Hands finding yours, untangling the tense, terrible, trembling, steady touch and breath and focus and and-

You are here. Now. Not alone. Not dying.

You know. They are a hairsbreadth away. Demons and darkness and death. But you are not alone and those around you are guardians, trusted and tender and terrible to your enemies within and without.

And with them you can stay one step ahead of the nightmares.

Always.


End file.
